cheeky_monkey

in fact the allied bombing offensive never got into full swing until late 1943..early 1944..so tht dosnt explain the very cold winters of the early 1940s...in fact the winterof 41-42 was exceptionally cold across eastern europe and russia, the coldest in the last 250yrs!

im going 4 less settled and cooler august esp last week my guess 16.4c

at my loc in exeter this month as of close of play yesterday.... ave max 26.45c ave min 13.42c cet to date = 19.93c

is it me..but the daffs this year are much later than last...daffs in my garden were just comming into bud on jan 9 2005...still havnt reached that stage as yet 5 feb 2006...probaly down to the large number of air frosts experienced this winter as opposed to others...this is the latest they have made an appearence since the mid 1990s!

lets put it this way it took the allies three years of in depth planning and preperation to mount the dday landings. in summer of 1940 the germans did not have the resources the landing craft the naval back up the know how to make any serious attempt at invading it was a bluff to try and tempt britain into suing for peace....hilters ambitions lay in the east and the destruction of the soviet union..not the invasion of great britain.

im not old enough for 62-63 i was born in 1966. funny how ppl have different perceptions of winters....i personally dont rate 1987..it only delivered that very cold 10 day spell in mid january and not much else..nor do i rate the winters of 95/6 and 96/7..both really didnt deliver too much in terms of widespread snow. for me looking back we had an incredible run of winters from 77/78 through to 86/87..even by the standards of winters that went before, both in terms of snowfall and lengthy cold spells of weather. my personal favourite is 78/79..which was characterised by cold snowy weather followed by a short mild spells and thaw then refreeze and more snow again from dec to end of march.

the reason that the germans never invaded had nothing to do with the weather..they were simply unprepared to invade..they had expected and offered britain peace after the fall of France..even with control of the air it was highly unlikely the german armed forces could have made a serious assault on the british isles.

snowing heavly and blowing a gale in exeter..now

i dont remember ever seeing lying snow in november

to me the ssts at the moment are looking spot on for a -ve nao set up should it remain in place..above average around 30 - 50 deg N and below average 55 -70 deg N across the majority of the north atlantic.

28 October 2005 The prospect of a cold winter is currently the subject of significant speculation amid reports that forecasters expect the coldest winter since 1963. The Met Office’s winter forecast does not make these extreme claims but does suggest that the coming winter will be colder and drier than normal. However it is too early to be specific about the timing and severity of any individual cold spells. Most of the winters in the last ten years have been relatively mild. This perhaps gives the impression that this type of winter is now 'normal' meaning a colder winter would be more noticeable. The Met Office winter forecast is based on techniques which, for the broad weather patterns across Europe, are correct about two times in three.

just a quick note about the above very intersting read. as a prequel to nov 1703..sept and october were very cold not very warm as u suggest with cet of 10.6 and 7.8 respectively..maybe that had something to do with the intensity of the storm that november???

thats a bit of a contradiction..if the +ve anomly were to grow over the next week or so then it would be mighty difficult for sea ice to form around iceland even with sustained northerlies?

i remember it well..it was my friends wedding the day before. we drove back 2 essex on the friday and it threw it down..when we drove back on the sunday it was fantastic very warm shades on windows down all the way.

spot on..the north sea and baltic are very shallow seas in comparison to the major oceans and can warm and cool very rapidly dependant on weather conditions....for example in early march 1987 temps in the southern north sea were only 2c above freezing after a cold january.

here in sw england dry warm..not hot..relatively sunny..only 3 thunder days..overall a good summer IMO..very pleasent.

lets put it this way you would measure it in feet not inches..as i said b4 i lived in exeter in 1978 and i note that mr data has published an artical that exeter airport recored a level fall of 34cm on the 19th febuary 1978 which is over a foot in one day and this fell on top of existing deep snow cover.... obviously with a gale blowing drifts in my area alone must have been close to 10-15ft deep, i would also expect much heavier falls were recorded on the surrounding hills.

to be honest february 1991 was the last decent snow event i have seen in terms of depth and length of time it stayed around...so its nearly 15years and counting. still feb 1978 was on another level altogther though!!

chelmsford is the county town of essex it is between colchester and london, about 15 miles morth west of basildon.

dont you mean january 1982? dont remember any in jan 1981. dec 1981 and the first 3weeks of jan 1982 were very cold and snowy.

i lived in chelmsford for 13 yrs..weatherwise its a great place to be when a winter easterly kicks in 1986,87 and 91 were paricularly good.. i remember playing football for the college in a game in feb 1991 that was abandoned after 30 mins there were blizzrd like conditions the snow was fine and powerdary..trouble was the ground was frozen solid and dangerous..anyway driving back on the minibus the radio gave the temp for colchester as being -6c god knows what the windchill was on the pitch that day!!...it is the only time i have worn gloves and leggings under my kit! as did both teams that day.

i was 11 yrs old at the time and living in exeter. what i remember of feb 1978 was that it was very cold in the first cpl weeks with snow showers, then on the 15th the weather changed and i went to school that mrning in heavy rain..it rained all day until about 4.30 when it slowly began to turn to sleet, by 6 it was snowing heavily. the next day the 16th was my brothers brithday and we woke to find a deep covering of snow and clear blue skies. it snowed again that afternoon and again the next day. on the sat the weather forcasters were predicting severe weather and blizzards and sure enough by lunctime the snow had started the winds picked up ..id never seen horizontal snow before. needless to say by the next morning my dads car was completly buried in the driveway and our bird table in our backgarden which was at least 6ft tall was lost under a drift against next doors fence. what i didnt realise at the time was that i was witnessing something special..a blizzard/snowfall that has never been matched since in my experience even though i have lived most of my life since 1982 in essex and seen the snows of the mid 80s, jan 87 and feb 91 but none of those have come close to that week in feb 1978.

can u please post a link to a site that has the met office defintion of a severe winter of a cet below 3c at the moment i am having trouble located one?

i dont agree about the definition of a severe winter...simply because the defintion of a severe winter month is one with a cet of below 2c..therefore by your thinking you could have severe winter winter with no severe months in it!

i think the way you have classified those winters are misleading. should be: 6c and over = very mild 5c-6c = mild 4-5c = average 3-4c = rather cold 2-3c = cold below 2c = severe plus the average for 1971-2000 which i assuming you are using would certainly not been average pre 20th century and would have been classed as mild..IMO.